April 2005

Sunday, April 24, 2005

"The internet is swamped with people pirating movies and music, costing
the entertainment industry millions each year. The Nopir-B worm targets
people it believes may be involved in piracy, but fails to discriminate
between the true criminals and those who may have MP3 files they have
created themselves," said Graham Cluley,
senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Whichever side of the fence
you come down on in regards to internet piracy, there's no debate about
the criminal nature of this worm - designed to inflict malicious damage
on people's Windows computers."

Excerpt:"The main problem, however, with this book is that Diamond’s well-meaning, environmentally correct storytelling cannot impart any coherent lesson of why in fact societies fail. Environmental degradation, climate change, hostilities, political and cultural failures, and trade are cited as the roots of collapse, but are used so interchangeably that we never learn to what degree mismanagement of nature or of people brings on doom. As a result, when Diamond ventures into systematic analysis of historical questions that he knows nothing about, he has a predictable propensity to say things that are not simply wrong but hilarious."

Imagine swallowing a beating
cobra’s heart. Or tucking into deep-fried bull’s testicles, or a bowl
of stir-fried dog. Maybe the thought of grilled mice on rice turns your
stomach? Not so Jerry Hopkins, who for the past 25 years has rejected
his "meat and potatoes" upbringing in the United States to try out a
range of regional specialities in a number of far-flung countries. From
a shot glass of warm bat’s blood in a Saigon bar, to roasted water
beetle washed down with beer on a Bangkok street, Hopkins has sampled
things that most of us would shudder to think about, let alone put in
our mouths. It’s all done in the name of adventure, but he does admit
that sometimes, "I just have to shut my eyes and swallow quickly.

Putting the dictum "I'll try anything once" to a hard test! Still, I've tried rattlesnake before and that actually tasted quite good. But any meal consisting of testicles and yak-urin... Not my cup of tea!!!

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

"Clearly Islam and fascism are inspired by identical philosophies. Just like fascism, Islam

is marked by centralization of authority under a supreme leader vested with divine clout,

has stringent control over all aspects of the lives of all its subjects irrespective of their faith,

suppresses its opposition through terror and censorship,

has a policy of belligerence towards non-Muslim nations, the Dar al-Harb,

practices religious apartheid and has an impure class,

disdains reason,

extols unquestioning loyalty,

glorifies the state,

is imperialistic,

is oppressive,

is dictatorial and

is controlling.

Islam, like fascism, appeals to people with low self esteem and low intelligence. Both these ideologies are irrational. and hail devotion and submission to a higher authority. Like fascists, Muslims are triumphalists. They seek power, domination and control. They pride themselves in their strength of number, in their mindless heroism, in their disdain for life and in their willingness to kill and die for their cause.

Islam is political and political Islam is fascism. "

This long article is hard-hitting, essentialized and to the point. A riveting read that goes right into the nitty-gritty of things.

But, what's missig though is an analysis of the ethics altruism and the nobilty of self-sacrifice which both extol unabashed.

For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration
in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it
could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of
finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed
infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus
Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies,
tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make
a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles,
Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost
for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian
gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the
earliest books of the New Testament.

...The previously unknown texts, read for the first time last week,
include parts of a long-lost tragedy - the Epigonoi ("Progeny") by the
5th-century BC Greek playwright Sophocles; part of a lost novel by the
2nd-century Greek writer Lucian; unknown material by Euripides;
mythological poetry by the 1st-century BC Greek poet Parthenios; work
by the 7th-century BC poet Hesiod; and an epic poem by Archilochos, a
7th-century successor of Homer, describing events leading up to the
Trojan War. Additional material from Hesiod, Euripides and Sophocles
almost certainly await discovery.

Update 16: FURTHER COMMANDS TO ISSUE IN VB2:"ashlee sing","Frank","Strip Lisa", "MAGIC","SHOW ME MAGIC", "Play with Barbie","tetley","baltica", "coors" (for more chick-fighting),"creemore","heineken","canadian" and for us Scandinavians, why not order a "tuborg".

"A Finnish delegation lead by EU parliamentarian Henrix Lax asked the
EU's environment commissioner Stavros Dimas for the right to shoot
wolves and presented a petition signed by 21,000 Finns, newspaper
Dagsavisen reports.

The EU Commission ruled in January that Finland would stand trial for their wolf hunt.

Lax
said that it was incomprehensible that Finland's EU membership meant
that citizens had to live in fear of wolves," Finnish Broadcasting YLE
reported."

Then again, the EU isn't anything else than a pack of rabid wolfs, so what can one expect, they will certainly look out for their own. Poor Finns!